India a star performer for Cisco Systems in Q4

India was once again one of Cisco's best performers in the quarter ended July.India revenue grew 20% in the quarter, even as China declined 12% and total emerging markets declined 6%.Cisco's overall revenue grew 2%.TNN | August 19, 2016, 09:56 IST

Bengaluru: India was once again one of Cisco's best performers in the quarter ended July. India revenue grew 20% in the quarter, even as China declined 12% and total emerging markets declined 6%. Cisco's overall revenue grew 2%.

India has now been mentioned for its good performance in each of the past nine quarterly earnings calls. In the first three quarters of this fiscal, India growth was 40%, 23% and 18% respectively. Cisco, which did $48.7 billion in revenue in fiscal 2016, does not disclose revenue numbers by country. But it was estimated that in the 2015 fiscal, India did about $1.5 billion. So the near 25% growth in fiscal 2016 comes on top of a fairly big base.

Dinesh Malkani, president of Cisco India & Saarc, attributed it partly to the huge support in terms of people and resources provided to India by Cisco's corporate headquarters. Chairman John Chambers has long been a big votary of India, and spearheaded the establishment of the Globalization Centre East in Bengaluru, the R&D-cum-business development facility that Cisco also calls its second global headquarters.

Malkani noted that India was selected as part of the company's Country Digitization Acceleration Program. Only four other countries are part of this list - France, Germany, Italy and UK. Under this programme, Malkani's team has access to a $100 million fund to help the local market digitize. The fund has been used to establish six innovation labs to nurture local expertise in areas including smart cities, internet-of-things (IoT), cybersecurity and next gen digital technologies. The company is setting up security operations centres that will offer products and services to manage security.

Asked about the impact on India of the planned layoff of 5,500 people globally, Malkani said it was premature to talk about it.

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